moors. The captain
is described as a clever, determined fellow--of the daring piratical
sort--with the dash of mystery about him that women like--"

"She's not the same as other women!" interposed Mr. Bashwood, suddenly
interrupting his son. "Did she--?" His voice failed him, and he stopped
without bringing the question to an end.

"Did she like the captain?" suggested Bashwood the younger, with another
laugh. "According to her own account of it, she adored him. At the same
time her conduct (as represented by herself) was perfectly innocent.
Considering how carefully her husband watched her, the statement
(incredible as it appears) is probably true. For six weeks or so they
confined themselves to corresponding privately, the Cuban captain (who
spoke and wrote English perfectly) having contrived to make a go-between
of one of the female servants in the Yorkshire house. How it might
have ended we needn't trouble ourselves to inquire--Mr. Waldron himself
brought matters to a crisis. Whether he got wind of the clandestine
correspondence or not, doesn't appear. But this is certain, that he came
home from a ride one day in a fiercer temper than usual; that his wife
showed him a sample of that high spirit of hers which he had never yet
been able to break; and that it ended in his striking her across the
face with his riding-whip. Ungentlemanly conduct, I am afraid we must
admit; but, to all outward appearance, the riding-whip produced the
most astonishing results. From that moment the lady submitted as she had
never submitted before. For a fortnight afterward he did what he liked,
and she never thwarted him; he said what he liked, and she never uttered
a word of protest. Some men might have suspected this sudden reformation
of hiding something dangerous under the surface. Whether Mr. Waldron
looked at it in that light, I can't tell you. All that is known is that,
before the mark of the whip was off his wife's face, he fell ill, and
that in two days afterward he was a dead man. What do you say to that?"

"I say he deserved it!" answered Mr. Bashwood, striking his hand
excitedly on the table, as his son paused and looked at him.

"The doctor who attended the dying man was not of your way of thinking,"
remarked Bashwood the younger, dryly. "He called in two other medical
men, and they all three refused to certify the death. The usual legal
investigation followed. The evidence of the doctors and the evidence
of the servants po